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Sick workers seek justice after cleaning up BP’s oil spill · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, April 28th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today."
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  On today's show, searing testimony against Donald Trump, a dangerous turning point for the people of Sudan as the humanitarian crisis gets worse, plus, why every couple should probably go see a couples therapist.
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  But first, when BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up, hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of several months. That was 13 years ago this month, and it remains the largest ever oil spill in U.S. waters.
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  You might remember the pictures of animals, of birds and turtles, glazed in oil. The mass of slick coated the coastline, and tens of thousands of people did the grueling work of cleaning it up. Years later, many of those workers say the cleanup made them very sick. Some have chronic breathing and stomach problems. Others have cancer. They say they're having trouble getting compensated, and many are suing BP.
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  "The Guardian" is telling their stories. Investigative reporter Sara Sneath told us about what it's like for one of the dozens of workers they spoke with.
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  Sara Sneath: He's been through 18 rounds of chemotherapy and he has prostate cancer, which has spread to his liver. He's not a litigious person; he's a person who is just trying to go about his life, and he just doesn't want his family to go in debt over his medical bills.
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  Lawyers say BP gave workers little warning about the danger of toxins. They cite safety documents that focus on other health risks, like heat exhaustion and bug bites. Workers say they were given little protective gear.
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  Oliver Laughland, "The Guardian's" southern bureau chief, asked workers why they're fighting in courts.
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  Oliver Laughland: What they articulated to me certainly was, it's not just about money and settlement money, it's about recognition and the idea that there should be some accountability to BP, over a decade after the disaster.
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  BP declined to answer "The Guardian's" questions, citing ongoing litigation. It did pay $65 million to cover short-term illness. That comes out to less than $3,000 per person. Plaintiffs' lawyers say thousands of cases have been dismissed. Sneath says BP is aggressively fighting workers' legal claims.
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  Sneath: BP has claimed in court that without some sort of blood samples, or the like, that prove that the toxins got into the workers' blood, them just working on the spill is not enough to prove that they had a level of exposure that could cause a health problem.
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  Many workers say they're proud of what they did to clean up the Gulf and the coastline. But 13 years later, they're paying a heavy price, and now they want justice for their sacrifice.
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  Now, let's quickly catch up on some of the other big stories in the news today.
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  E. Jean Carroll testified again, in the civil trial of Donald Trump. She was cross-examined by Trump attorney Joe Tacopina. She's suing for battery and defamation, saying that Trump raped her in the '90s. He has consistently denied that. In court yesterday, Tacopina asked Carroll several times why she didn't scream. At one point, she answered, "I was too much in panic to scream." She also said, "I don't need an excuse for not screaming."
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  Legal analyst Lisa Rubin talked to "NBC" about the cross-examination.
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  Lisa Rubin: She started to cry, and then Tacopina realized he may have gone a little bit too far and said, "Do you need a moment?" And she said, "No." It was almost like she was daring him, if you think you're going to make me weak in this moment, that's not going to happen.
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  In an entirely different case involving Trump, Mike Pence reportedly testified before a federal grand jury yesterday. It's investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election that he lost. This is the first time in modern history a former VP has been compelled to testify against the president he served. Trump's legal efforts to block that testimony failed.
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  Two conservative state legislatures failed to pass strict new anti-abortion laws yesterday. In Nebraska and South Carolina, Republican lawmakers played key roles in defeating the abortion bans. This connects to something that we talked about recently on the show. There's concern among some Republican Party leaders that taking too hard a line against abortion rights will turn off a lot of voters.
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  In international news, the Biden administration is slapping new sanctions on Russia and Iran. It says it's because of a pattern of wrongfully detaining Americans to get political leverage. The move came as Russia rejected a U.S. request to make a consular visit to jailed "Wall Street Journal" reporter Evan Gershkovich.
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  And across Ukraine, Russia is launching a new round of deadly air attacks. Air raid sirens woke people up in Kyiv early this morning.
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  One Russian missile hit an apartment building. Another hit a house, killing a woman and a two-year-old child. Ukraine says it shot down most of the Russian cruise missiles. The country's bracing for more air attacks, as the Kremlin tries to gain an advantage ahead of a widely expected counteroffensive by Ukraine.
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  Escalating conflict in Sudan is making a humanitarian crisis in the country even worse. Rival generals and their forces are fighting for control. Hundreds of people are dead, many of them civilians who weren't able to get out ahead of the fighting. Analysts believe that the true death toll is much higher because many parts of the country are too dangerous to access to see the full impact.
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  There's technically been an on-and-off ceasefire, but heavy fighting has continued. Quiet residential streets have turned into disaster zones. "CNN" spoke to Khalid Osman. His mother, a doctor, was killed in her home by shrapnel from a nearby explosion.
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  Khalid Osman: She was recording the loud explosions and the gunfire so we can hear it. And it was so loud, I felt like I'm living there. I felt like I'm there. I felt like I'm with them. One minute, my mom was recording those gunfires, and then less than half an hour later, she wasn't.
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  "TIME" magazine explains that before the latest violence, about one-third of the population relied on international aid for basic needs. That's around 15 million people. Sudan was already dealing with drought, hyper-inflation and food shortages. Public services and infrastructure are collapsing. More people will need support because of the fighting. But the violence is forcing multiple aid organizations to suspend or cut back operations and evacuate their workers.
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  Aid workers say the situation is spilling over into neighboring countries. Tens of thousands of people are escaping to nearby Chad and South Sudan. Humanitarian groups are starting to shift efforts to those countries. But they're hopeful they can still do the work that's needed in Sudan. An official with the International Rescue Committee tells "TIME" this is about preventing the slide from a fragile state to a failed state. Making sure humanitarian groups can get aid to people is a critical part of that.
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  Before we let you go, let me tell you about what's coming up on this week's episode of "In Conversation." It's about couples therapy. We recently asked you, listeners of this show, to drop us a voicemail to tell us what you've learned about relationships from therapy. And so many of you echoed some version of this really common tip: it's all about good communication.
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  Listener 1: She said, you say things to each other that only a parent would say to a child.
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  Listener 2: It's not that he can't hear me, it's just that he doesn't care.
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  Listener 3: Open communication is difficult but completely necessary.
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  Listener 4: We have to find common ground so that we can really understand each other's language.
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  Listener 5: It only works if both parties are willing.
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  Another big theme in your voicemails: the importance of understanding that your version of the story isn't necessarily the truth. It's just one version, and your partner might have a different take. One caller, Kimberly, told us about an exercise from therapy that really stayed with her and her husband.
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  Kimberly: The therapist asked us to think about taking the top off of your home and describe for me what the scene looks like. And as my husband and I began to share our lens or the view at which we were seeing the disagreement we were having, in relation to taking the top off, and seeing it play out in our house had a dramatic effect on us. It created for us this sense of sheer, "Oh my gosh, this is how we're behaving."
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  This week on "In Conversation," I sat down with Dr. Orna Guralnik, the therapist behind the "SHOWTIME" documentary series "Couples Therapy." It's what it sounds like. It's a show where real-life couples hash out their conflicts, their traumas and their anxieties on camera, with Dr. Guralnik as their guide. And I have to tell you, I have seen every single episode with my husband, and it can get pretty intense.
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  Dr. Guralnik is a psychoanalyst, which means that she looks closely at a person's internal world and how their past could be unconsciously impacting or motivating them. I asked her to share some advice that every couple could use, not just the ones that sit on her couch.
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  Dr. Orna Guralnik: The thing that irks you the most about your partner, if you could take it as a thought experiment and ask yourself, if that's not really only about my partner, what else is this about? If this thing that is driving me crazy is not only about my partner, what else? Childhood, other kind of inner issues that are getting kind of projected onto the partner.
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  You can find this episode of "Apple News In Conversation" in the News app and in the Podcasts app. And if you're listening in the News app right now, stick around. My full conversation with Dr. Guralnik is cued up to play for you next.
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  So enjoy listening to that, have a great weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
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